Rinaldi Leaves Bloomsbury
Richard Charkin announced today, "It is with
enormous regret that I have to let you know that Karen Rinaldi,
President of Bloomsbury USA, has accepted a very senior and interesting
post at Rodale Books. Karen has
been the heart and soul of one of the most innovative and successful
publishing companies in the USA. She has been instrumental in building
a great list of books, a great team of people and a great reputation for
Bloomsbury. We shall all miss her enormously but she has left a superb
legacy on which we can build and for that we are all grateful."
Rinaldi says: "The past nine years have been rewarding in so many
ways
Strong Finish at Penguin US
Penguin came back from a weak first half of the year with sales of 479
million pounds for the last two quarters, leaving full-year sales
almost even at 846 million pounds. Down two million pounds from a year
ago, the company says "underlying" sales (if they didn't report in
pounds and/or if the dollar had not plunged) were up 3 percent. CEO
John Makinson notes "that understates the achievement in the US,"
driven by Oprah-backed Ken Follett and books like Elizabeth Gilbert's
Eat, Pray, Love, which shipped "nearly 1.5 million copies in December
alone." Penguin USA ceo David Shanks concurred that "just about
everything worked for us last year." Companywide, adjusted operating
profit rose by all measures, up 12 percent to 74 million pounds (and
said to be up 20 percent on that "underlying" basis). The company still
aims to increase margins to 10 percent for 2008.
Around the world, UK sales were "pretty flat" according to Makinson and
the DK unit was "a little bit down" balanced by "the best Canadian
publishing in our history." He notes they have "more ground to make up
in London than elsewhere in the company" while citing "progress in cost
improvement" from initiatives put in place over the past few years.
Emphasizing the company's efforts at "global publishing," Makinson
celebrated success in multiple territories for Kim Edwards' Memory
Keeper's Daughter and Alan Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence, with
"almost 1 million copies shipped worldwide," and now in 2008 with
Oprah's
new pick Eckhart Tolle.
On the electronic front, the company is sticking with what Makinson
called "a reasonably conservative approach." He says that they are
"quite deliberately at the conservative end of the spectrum on
copyright protection and pricing issues," noting that "leadership in
one of these issues doesn't give you much" and that "if we have to
change our position, it wouldn't be too difficult to do that." In one
shift, Penguin USA has decided (again) to experiment with DRM free
downloadable audio files through e-music. While there are no firm plans
to offer such files elsewhere, Shanks says "it's very possible" that
they will join Borders' planned MP3 store this spring as well as other
initiatives. Makinson says they are aiming to have "a consistent policy
everywhere in the world" and says Penguin "may well be publishing
DRM-free downloads in the UK," too.
But Shanks is not tempted to join other publishers in experimenting
with free book files online, saying "I think it's a mistake to value a
download at zero." Similarly, Penguin will continue to price ebooks the
same as print books. "Whoever buys an electronic book is not going to
buy the paper version," Shanks says, and it would be "harmful to my
authors and harmful to my margins" to price ebooks lower. He sees
current ebook sales as driven by "the books people want to read" rather
than price. "We have an opportunity to change the economics of
publishing, and it's not supposed to be changed for the worse." With
the release of the Kindle, "our overall e-book sales [for both Kindle
and Sony Reader] are up dramatically over the first two months," Shanks
says, though Makinson adds, "that's from a very small to a slightly
less smaller number."
Separately, Pearson's Education units, which provide two-thirds of
sales, were up 4 percent, with sales of 2.684 billion pounds, while
operating profit rose 5 percent to 404 million pounds. Pearson ceo
Marjorie Scardino said in a conference call, "We will have integration
costs from the Harcourt testing business which will be meaningful, so
you should infer from that that we will be adding to our margins but
for those costs."
Pearson
results
Also from Penguin, the ten finalists for in the Amazon Breakthrough
Novel Award contest have been culled, and now the public gets to vote
online. The "panel of publishing industry professionals" will post
their comments on the manuscripts "on or about March 17."
Amazon site
More DRM-Free Audio On the Way
On the audiobook DRM front, other publishers are looking at joining
Penguin and following Random House's lead in offering more digital
audiobooks for sale as unencrypted MP3 files. Simon & Schuster
says they will unlock about 150 audio titles in the "next couple of
months" while Harper indicates they are "watching these developments
closely but
Borders says they plan "to begin selling MP3 downloads by early
spring," while BN still has "no plans to enter the audio book market at
this time."
NYT
Too Much Security and Technology Impairs "Free" Harper Download
Also on the subjects of electronic files and free-dom in its various
forms, Cory Doctorow posted on Boing Boing on Saturday about Harper's
limited-time free online posting of Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS. "I
think that Harper Collins got this one wrong. They've put the text of
American Gods up in a wrapper that loads pictures of the pages from the
printed book, one page at a time, with no facility for offline reading.
The whole thing runs incredibly slowly and is unbelievably painful to
use. I think we can be pretty sure that no one will read this version
instead of buying the printed book
Noting that unauthorized copies can be downloaded with ease, he adds,
"The 'security' that Harper Collins has bought with its clunky, kudgey
experiment is nonexistent: pirates will just go get the pirate edition.
Gaiman, who has nurtured his fan base with care for years, posts on his
own site and agrees: "I'm currently talking to Harpers about ways we
can make the American Gods online reading experience a more pleasant
one. And about ways to give American Gods away that would make Harper
Collins happy while also making, say, Cory Doctorow happy too."
At the same time, Gaiman notes "I was surprised by a few emails coming
in from people accusing me of doing bad things for other authors by
giving anything away
Meanwhile, the site offers a free audio story ready to go.
BB
Gaiman
site
The Most News that the Business Uses
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Jan Morris Prepares Book for Posthumous Publication
WSJ May Take Piece of Reporters' Book Deals
Riggio: Business Is "Fairly Sound"
Menaker's Show Debuts
Marley and Movie
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Re-Stored in NY
Hasting's Good Yarns Bookshop is being bought by manager Bill Tester,
according to Shelf Awareness. He stepped in three days before the
scheduled closing, after most of the inventory and some of the fixtures
were already sold off. Shelf says "Tester is negotiating with the
landlord, who has expressed support, and aims to remodel the store,
rename it and convert it into a combination bookstore and learning
center."
BN's Online Studio
Also on the video front, BarnesandNoble.com announced via a press
release the launch of a multimedia section on their site that "will
feature a range of original content about books, readers and writers,
and showcase web video series and other multimedia content about varied
aspects of literature, complemented by user-generated material."
It's run by Mike Skagerlind, vp and head of digital media, who recently
joined the site after 12 years at Nickelodeon, most recently as general
manager of Nickelodeon Online.
One five-minute weekly series, Barnes & Noble Tagged!, hosted
by Molly Pesce, "will let book-loving viewers know what new titles to
look out for and will reveal the stories behind recent book news." The
first episode tips new releases from Jodi Picoult, Linda Fairstein,
Jeffrey Archer, Anne and Christopher Rice, and more. Book Obsessed
features regular readers talking about books they love.
BN Studio
Release
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Among the latest:
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